Video Shows Chicago Police Fatally Shooting Unarmed Teen As He Flees

After firing several shots, however, police also fatally shot Bettie Jones in the chest.

The videos are expected to be released on Thursday. The release follows a public outcry over the police department’s use of force, and their distrust of mayor Rahm Emanuel’s ability to hold officers who use lethal force accountable.

The judge lifted a protective order that barred the release after the city dropped its objections.

“It is a political move to save face”, Coffman said. He said the officer put his boot into the slain teen’s back after cuffing him, as if it was a “trophy kill”.

Chicago has dealt with three videos recently.

Andrew Hale, a lawyer for two officers named as defendants in the lawsuit, said in an email Wednesday that the video will show his clients acted properly. The attorney for officers Fry and Toth say his clients stand by their statements that they believe Chatman was armed and turned towards the officers. The police officer said he “feared for my life” as well as others’ because Cedrick turned toward them with a black object – possibly a gun – in his hand. The Independent Police Review Authority and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office have determined that the shooting was justified. At first, he ruled the shooting was unjustified, and claims he was sacked as a result.

Both remain on active street duty.

In the Chatman case, it was unclear how much the videos would reveal.

He runs across the street and squeezes between two parked cars as Fry’s partner, Officer Lou Toth, gives chase. “You might say he was in the line of fire”.

“A medical expert has reported that a bullet entered the suspect’s right forearm and then entered the lower right side of the abdomen”.

Coffman, meanwhile, has said the video shows the teen “wasn’t the aggressor at all”.

Prosecutors had also initially charged Chatman’s friends with first-degree murder, arguing that despite being nowhere near the shooting, they “set in motion a chain of events that caused the death of Cedrick Chatman”.

“You have everything going on in Chicago right now rolled into one case”, Coffman said. The city had long opposed the release of such videos while investigations and court hearings were underway.

The videos, which could be released on Thursday, show the shooting death of Cedrick Chatman, 17, in January 2013.

At a hearing earlier Thursday, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman sharply criticized the city attorneys for suddenly reversing course on the video’s release after spending weeks trying to prevent it.

The shooting was captured on a police surveillance camera, a camera outside a nearby convenience store, and a camera near the South Shore High School.

“I am very disturbed about the way this happened”, Gettleman said. The video of that killing was not released until last November. Chatman’s family denies that he did.

Releasing the videos would not change that fact, wrote Mark Smolens, a co-counsel for Chatman’s mother. His supervisors would overrule his decision, and Davis was subsequently fired from IPRA.

But at a news conference on Thursday, Alvarez didn’t seem inclined to do that. Camden said Chatman had appeared to reach for something in the passenger seat before bolting from the auto. He has filed a wrongful termination suit against the city.

“It’s so that there is no question that justice and fairness will be done in police involved shootings, and that this cozy relationship between prosecutors and police won’t impede the justice system from flowing”, he says. He hopes she might consider reopening the case. Indeed, the video shows the intersection where the shooting occurred having significant traffic. This includes the protest planned for Mayor Emanuel’s breakfast on Friday. “This is what bothers me”. “What else should we be monitoring in terms of outstanding reactive stories?”

The national debate over police use of force has been dogged by worries among many, especially minority Americans, that prosecutors may be protecting police under the guise of jurisprudence.